In Tel Aviv, at Ami Steinitz Contemporary Art Gallery, there will be a "dinner party", an Hafla, organized by Mario Rizzi. Hafla is both an Arabic and Hebrew word which means party, gathering. This will be the last of a series of relational art events realized in Israel-Palestine by the Italian artist in the last two months.
by Mario Rizzi
In Tel Aviv, at Ami Steinitz Contemporary Art Gallery,
there will be a "dinner party", an Hafla, organized by Mario Rizzi. Hafla is
both an Arabic and Hebrew word which means party, gathering. This will be the
last of a series of relational art events realized in Israel-Palestine by the
Italian artist in the last two months.
Invited to live in the Artists' Residence of Herzeliya, Mario Rizzi has created
a relational project consisting of two complementar parts.
The gift. Seventy-four people, 37 Israeli Jews and 37 Israeli Arabs -
Palestinians, contacted on the streets of Israel & Palestine (from Tel
Aviv/Jaffa to Jerusalem to Haifa to Ramallah to Bethlehem) in the everyday life
by the Artist have accepted to exchange a special gift with an unknown receiver
of the other people. They were requested to choose an object which could
symbolize and represent their identity of Israelis/Palestinians living in the
Country. The choice had to be the fruit of a personal introspection, possibly
not simply linked to the tradition or to the religion, but expressing the
personal views, someway a Weltanschauung. They were asked to write a text
explaining what that object meant to them and giving a personal statement on
their identity. Objects+texts were exchanged among the participants,
co-creators of the project.
As an appendix to this gift exchange, 30 more people, 16-year-old adolescents
from both peoples, met in Jerusalem and also exchanged a personal gift.
Hafla. Around hundred people, met in the same casual way in the everyday life,
gave the Artist a recipe they usually cook in their home. The recipes were
exchanged between individuals of the two peoples. On February 1st, 2001 at the
Jerusalem Center for the Visual Arts (the Center curated by Yona Fischer where
artists such as Boltanski, Calle, Pistoletto lived) there has been a dinner with
51 participants (27 Palestinians and 24 Israelis): everybody cooked beforehand
or in the same Centre the recipe they received in exchange. Hafla Jerusalem
began at 7 pm and lasted a few hours, as people remained to dance until late at
night. A second dinner, Hafla Tel Aviv, will be at Ami Steinitz Contemporary
Art Gallery in Tel Aviv on February 10, 2001 beginning at 8 pm. During this
second Hafla, there will be an Arab band playing music, a Jew dancer performing
Japanese traditional dances and some more happenings. Both dinner-parties were
or will be completely recorded on video by Mario Rizzi.
The book. An artist book, called on one side "The gift" and on the other
side "Book of recipes", completely conceveid and designed by Mario Rizzi, has
been published as an official publication of the Jerusalem Center for the
Visual Arts. It contains all the 74 texts regarding "the gift" in English (the
texts originally written in Hebrew or Arabic and even some of those originally
written in English are also scanned in the book) and 18 of the recipes. Also, it
contains 32 video freeze images of one of the "gift exchanges" as well as
images of "Hafla Jerusalem".
What: Hafla Tel Aviv by Mario Rizzi
Where: Ami Steinitz Contemporary Art Gallery, 38 Shabazi Street, Tel Aviv,
Israel
When: February 10, 2001 at 8 pm